WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz is weighing in on the Congressional Budget Office’s damning assessment of the GOP’s health care bill, telling reporters that the “most troubling aspect” of the report is a forecast for rising insurance premiums.

“This is not the mandate that we were elected to fulfill,” he said Tuesday, a day after the CBO report was released. “The test of success will be a year from now, two years from now, three years from now: Is health care more affordable?”

The Texan who made his name opposing Obamacare is now openly calling for changes to the American Health Care Act unveiled by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Republican leaders last week.

Cruz spoke with President Donald Trump on Tuesday about the GOP's efforts to dismantle Obamacare and is expected to meet with administration officials Tuesday afternoon, Cruz aides confirmed.

Republican leaders are still reeling from the CBO’s dire predictions that, under the American Health Care Act, insurance premiums could rise 15 percent to 20 percent in the next few years and that tens of millions of Americans would lose coverage.

As many as 14 million more people would be uninsured next year under the proposed law, according to the assessment by the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation, due to rising premiums and the elimination of the so-called individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase coverage.

Combined with anticipated reductions in the Medicaid program, that number would swell to 52 million by 2026, the CBO report found, compared with 28 million Americans who would be uninsured under the Affordable Care Act. The majority of the new uninsured would be older, low-income Americans between the ages of 50 and 64, the CBO predicts.

“I have significant concerns with the House bill,” Cruz said, while many other Republicans — including fellow Texas Sen. John Cornyn — sought to downplay the CBO’s findings. “As drafted, the House bill would not pass the Senate.”

Cornyn, meanwhile, has said “we expect to do better” than the CBO’s predictions, Politico reported. He was among the Republican leaders arguing Tuesday that a rise in uninsured rates is to be expected once Americans are no longer required to buy coverage.

Also on Tuesday, GOP leaders touted the upside to their Obamacare replacement: Average premiums for single policyholders could drop by roughly 10 percent during the next decade and the GOP bill would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion.

The CBO also estimated that the GOP proposal's dramatic reductions in Medicaid spending would save $880 billion — though that would contribute to the rise in uninsured Americans.

While Paul is among those calling for Republicans to scrap the measure in favor of his own, Cruz has instead called for negotiations to “fix” the embattled bill.

“We need to fix the problems and, in particular, we need real reform that drives down the cost of premiums so that health care is more affordable,” Cruz said Tuesday. “The House bill does not accomplish that, so we have to come together to fix it.”

On Wednesday, however, Cruz is expected to join conservative lawmakers at a rally sponsored by FreedomWorks, an activist group that has blasted the Ryan bill for not going far enough in undoing the Affordable Care Act.

Conservative lawmakers and organizations have also decried the use of tax credits in the plan as a new “entitlement” program.